UNRAVELING: A Mosaic of Possible Futures

	someday it will no longer be a mystery
	how paramecium from primal seas
	blossomed into creatures
	piloting in starships traversing 
	sailing obsidian seas between galaxies.
	
	someday we'll grasp
	how all breathing life came from stellar debris
	& cosmic dust contained seeds of possibility, 
	ancient and mysterious.

	someday today's so-called "advanced" discoveries
	will seem simple childish matter-of-fact ABCs.

	If we weave our fates cooperatively
	& live in peacefully in concord
	our offspring will
	witness a universe of blinding discoveries.
	
	we're not the summit of evolution's climb— 
	far from final flawless code or ultimate products,
	just tiny tunneling worms in the cosmic crawl, 
	moving forward one fraction of one inch
	in the loam of eternity


SETTING:  A vast, silent library. Dust motes drift through columns of afternoon sun. 
          The air smells of aged paper and dry leather. Elijah slowly closes a book 
          of poetry, his expression mildly curious.

Elijah:   (pausing after reading the poem and rubbing his temples) This poem speaks of 
          beautiful possibilities. However, I'm not sure our species is evolved to reach 
          higher levels of consciousness.... to achieve that, radical social reengineering
          is needed. (looking up, his eyes catching dust motes flicking in Brownian motion 
          in the light ) Perhaps an AI, a mind vast enough to comprehend our flaws, could 
          actually reprogram some of our most destructive tendencies?

Jules:    (sketching in a electric notebook while nodding slowly) Aye. 
          In light of human history so far, I'm not even sure it is possible.
          We have left behind a devastatingly mixed record: moments of astonishing, 
          heaven-scraping greatness, scarred by equal measures of vile cruelty.

Andrei:   (standing by a tall window, silhouetted against the bright outside world, 
          his voice measured and chillingly calm) Elijah is right: the only logical solution 
          would be to have a superintelligent AI system control the world. It is 
          a curious twist on Thomas Hobbes' 1651 proposal in "Leviathan." However, instead of
          having earthly monarchs, perhaps we need a superintelligent AI system take the helm.
          I think we need a AI to act as the world's ultimate, benign sovereign because
          humans are simply too stupid to manage of the whole planet. Homo sapiens could  
          operate freely within small discrete and basically independent "sandbox" communities. 
          It seems we do best in tiny, self-sovereign, walled-off jewel-box communities.

Philyra:  (with a light, dismissive laugh) Oh, Andrei, my philosopher-king! You've been 
          reading too much science fiction!  However, you make a solid point: our current 
          path is simply not viable in the long-term.
          
Andrei:   (turning away from the window, a flicker of ride in his gaze) Perhaps so. 
          But tell me this, Philyra: isn’t it true that today’s most audacious science 
          fiction often becomes tomorrow’s fact? Aren’t the very seeds of tomorrow’s 
          visions and realities—both utopian and nightmarish—always first conceived and 
          invented in the landscapes of the present?


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from _Let the waters be my witness: Messages about our watery world_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY: Some thoughts about existence and our future possibilities.
KEYWORDS: cosmic evolution, futurology, possible futures, human evolution, scientific discoveries 

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1989 in Maui, Hawaiʻi  /  Finished: 2025 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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TRANSLATIONS

DEUTSCH   https://www.tnewfields.info/de/entwirren.htm
ESPAÑOL   https://www.tnewfields.info/es/rev.htm
FRANÇAIS  https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/deme.htm
NIHONGO   https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/nazo.htm
URDU      https://www.tnewfields.info/Translations/Azqan9.htm
ZHŌNGWÉN  https://www.tnewfields.info/zh/jie.htm